close in romney s home state of michigan. now, a veteran gop senator told politico if romney can t win michigan, we need a new candidate. mitch daniels door have become fist pounding. let s turn to howard fineman, editorial director of the huffington post media group. it s been two weeks tomorrow since the minnesota, missouri and colorado, rick santorum had the lead in the polls for a couple weeks. now this for romney, sort it out, what does it mean? who has the problems here? well, let s start with arizona. i think that is a close race, i think mitt romney by all rights should win it in part because there is a strong mormon population there. and he has ties in that part of the country. but the fact that it s close as it is is significant.
i m your guy. give me more money. everything becomes different. it s a game changer should that happen. so it s michigan next week. it s the big one. absolutely. what happens is you re looking at then jockeying for the strongest position to make the best argument to get the most delegates once you get to tampa. let s look at the new numbers coming in. in michigan, the ppp robo poll has romney gaining from last week s poll which was probably an outlier. now santorum still on top, 37% to romney s 33%. in arizona, what was thought of in arizona, what was thought of as a romney stronghold because of the large mormon population down there, romney has just a three-point lead over rick santorum. 36% to 33%. let me go to walter on this. the idea that santorum could be doing so well reminds me of buchanan where you can run well in one state. and all of a sudden be running well all across the country.
if you watched the grammys last night you know it was a soulful tribute to whitney houston. one performer there still too shaken up to sing and we ll talk about all the winners from last night. a massive budget battle. an election preview. it seems to be. the president is unveiling his final spending plan before the 2012 election today. and you know what, it s mot even delivered to capitol hill and the gop is already on it. what are they going to say about it and how do we know this will be the preview of the general election campaign? and lin han sanity. look at this guy. knicks new sensation, jeremy lin, making headlines on the other side of the globe as well. keep your eyes on that one. this is one of those sensations that just sort of came out of know where. did you know about him before they wrote about him this weekend. never heard a thing about him. i don t know a lot about basketball. i do. i couldn t believe i didn t know this guy. wait until you hear
counties to make that big of a jump. total turnout of 70,000 votes last time. so as we look at this, yes, it is possible that mitt romney could land the counties that seem to still be out are the ones where you would expect to have a large mormon population, out in the western part of the state. and then also the stuff immediately south of denver, around there, suburban, which should have more moderate voters, the kind of folks that favored rom niche so yeah, he could do a number. but whatever you do, this is going to be close and it s going to mean that rick santorum has beaten expectations pretty dramatically in colorado, whatever happens from here on in. try to put it in perspective, where we have come with candidate santorum? because, think about the almost didn t qualify for some of our early debates. the threshold was 1% in recent
nomination. mitt romney is still in front. newt gingrich has 38. rick santorum has 34 and ron paul, you see it there, has 20. dozens of syrians are reported dead today in a city under siege from its own government. this is homs, where anti-government activists say mortar fires from unseen attackers is almost constant. one says we cannot count the dead any more. i ll have more on this 11 will have month conflict and the choices facing washington in the west in our next segment moments from now. the white house is and congress are all too eager to support u.s. troops, but at the same time, the u.s. government might be able to further limit their legal rights. for more than 60 years, federal law has essentially barred military service members from suing the u.s. because of medical mass practice because of an injury or death on active duty. but government lawyers are trying to expand that, arguing the u.s. should be protected from malpractice lawsuits involving military famil